Team KGF eye up world records

Team formerly known as KGF to take step up with new sponsorship deal, reports Vern Pitt

Ateam of amateur British track riders who took the scene by storm last year are setting their sights on world records this year as they welcome further investment. Huub-wattbike, formerly Team KGF, impressed last winter, winning the team pursuit at a World Cup meet in Minsk and coming close to retaining their national title, before being scuppered by a mechanical problem.

The squad, which first made waves when it won the team pursuit national title in 2017, beating the British Cycling quartet in the process, has never been short of ambition but now the five-man squad is setting its sights higher.

They plan to go to altitude, probably at the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico, at the end of the track season to try and break the team pursuit, individual pursuit and hour world records.

Bigham said: “It was on the cards last year. We can go and do it but it’s about money and opportunity; it’s not just something you slot in on a free weekend. When you do it, it’s something you need to prepare for. [Huub founder] Dean [Jackson] is very keen on it.”

The individual pursuit record was lowered to just 4.07 by American Ashton Lambie, taking over three seconds off Jack Bobridge’s former mark, at the end of August. But team member Jonathan Wale said: “He’s got a moustache that’s costing him 50 watts.”

Rider Jacob Tipper added: “He did a really good ride but Charlie [Tanfield] and John [Archibald] have been going a good deal quicker than him.”

Bigham said there was a lot to consider for such a set of record attempts, including who you took to ride against you to help create a vortex in the track, to paying for anti-doping and UCI timekeepers.

The team lost Charlie Tanfield to British Cycling in the spring but has enlisted the help of Charlie’s brother Harry and national 10-mile TT champion John Archibald for the upcoming track season.

Having won one team pursuit contest at a World Cup meet in 2017-18 the squad now wants to win the entire series. “We haven’t properly thought about longer term goals. That’s the ceiling without being a national governing body. There is no solution to it,” he added.

The new sponsorship deal from triathlon kit company Huub and Wattbike means the team, which runs on a small budget, can now afford to fly a mechanic and a manager to World Cup meets — which it plans to do four of this year in France, Germany, Canada and London.

“We can go and do it but it’s about opportunity”

The squad still all live together in Derby, though they have moved out of the modest council house where Tipper slept on the floor, into student accommodation at the Derby Institute of Sport, where they train. “We have our own bedrooms now,” said Harry Tanfield.